Title: The Bond
Universe: Bleach (Yakuza AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: KyourakuxUkitake (with appearances by Yamamoto, Choujiro and various other shinigami)
Spoilers/Warnings: Vague spoilers for the "Turn Back the Pendulum" arc.
Word Count: 7,225
Summary: In the same universe as "The Bodyguard"- At the dawn of Yamamoto's reign over the thirteen families, his two most promising lieutenants get to know one another.
Dedication: kalong_chan's request for buying Crown Royale! I hope you don't mind AU LOL
A/N: Okay so clearly I really, really like the idea of Bleach characters in designer suits. SIGH. Also, this is really all over the map in terms of WTF is going on but I kind of just wrote whatever I wanted. As per usual.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.

Kyouraku and Ukitake come to live under Yamamoto Genryuusai's roof at roughly the same time, as two gangly, deceptively tough teenagers from very different background who, despite their circumstances, manage to fight and scrap and think their way to the attention of the two gentlemen just beginning to form their family under the crest of the Black Chrysanthemum.

Yamamoto and Choujiro find Kyouraku quite by accident one day, on a cold November night in Ginza, the young man all of a mature almost-sixteen and working the door at one of the seedier looking basement-level host clubs, making his way— despite his establishment's obvious deficiencies— with charming words and gentle smiles professional enough to lure a good number of wealthy ladies inside; Yamamoto instantly notices the way the young man can observe every tiny detail about a person without seeming to scrutinize a thing, the way he tailors his words and airs ever so slightly to fit each individual passerby in an easy, natural feeling sort of way.

The older man catches Kyouraku's eye as he and Choujiro stop at the crosswalk across the street from his landing, in no particular rush as they make their way to their own club, and in that moment Kyouraku grins crookedly at the two well-dressed gentlemen watching him and nods his head. The encounter likely would have ended there— the entire acquaintance might have ended there— if not for a would-be patron stumbling towards the staircase Kyouraku is stationed in front of, drunk and ranting and demanding to see Cherry-chan right now because she promised they'd always be together no matter what.

Kyouraku smoothly intercepts the weaving drunk, catching him in his arms and tsking. "Matsuoka-san," he soothes, "you know how fickle a woman's heart is," he soothes, and the man struggles out of his hold, fuming and red-faced.

"You don't speak about Cherry-chan like that, you stupid punk!" the patron shouts. "We're in love!"

Kyouraku just sighs. "You know I can't let you in."

"Fuck you, you can't stand in the way of our love!" the man bites out, and when Kyouraku moves to block his way again, he outright throws a punch at the kid.

Which Kyouraku dodges with a neat, almost lazy-looking sidestep, the young doorman not moving to strike back.

"You're drunk, Matsuoka-san," Kyouraku tsks. "I don't think you're making very good decisions right now." He smiles, in a pitying sort of way. "The restraining order Cherry-chan got tells me your relationship is over, Matsuoka-san. "

The man spits in the street and takes another swing. "Cherry-chan was just confused when she filed those charges!"

Kyouraku leans a few inches left to avoid the second shot, and across the street, Yamamoto and his second in command pause at the crosswalk, the older men curious at how the proceedings will play out and ready to act if the gangly kid working the door will need their help with the very large, very angry, very drunk stalker.

It doesn't look like it, but one never knows what could happen next on this side of town; it's why Yamamoto insists that he and Choujiro personally patrol it despite the dangerous nature of their current situations, the upheaval of the Tokyo underground that they're responsible for, and the sudden and explosive growth of their clan's network and resources.

Kyouraku doesn't need any help as it turns out, at least with this clumsy patron. All he does is continue to expertly preclude Matsuoka-san's way with careful positioning of his body, dodging the middle-aged man's punches in the meantime. On one such turn, he ducks around a blow to his jaw and shakes his head as looks Matsuoka-san over sadly, nodding towards the gold band around the man's wedding finger. "Matsuoka-san, don't you have a wife to go home to?" he prompts, gently. "This kind of behavior must make Chisa-chan very sad."

Matsuoka blinks, stumbling mid-punch. "How the hell do you know my wife's name?" he demands, wide-eyed and suspicious.

Kyouraku smiles disarmingly, posture relaxed and manner easy. "She calls here all the time you know, asking if anyone's seen her husband. Breaks my heart, Matsuoka-san. A nice girl like that, sitting at home worrying."

Matsuoka gapes a little bit.

Kyouraku doesn't seem to notice. "Shall I call her now? I wrote down her number, and promised to call if I saw you. Do you think she'd want to know?"

Kyouraku turns to go down the stairs, ostensibly to get a hold of a phone, but a hand on his arm stops him. A meek voice mutters, "Don't call my wife."

Matsuoka-san seems to have sobered up slightly in the last few minutes, undoubtedly from a combination of the freezing cold and the threat of red hot spousal ire.

Kyouraku smiles disarmingly at the request. "Oh, so then you were on your way home?" He looks down at the hand on his arm expectantly.

Matsuoka glares, but quickly withdraws his hand before turning and shuffling off. Not without giving the teenager a serious stink-eye first, but as it stands, the situation is handled without any punches landing and very little spectacle made of the situation as a whole.

And that's when Yamamoto knows.

The crosswalk signal finally changes right at that moment, and taking it all as a sign from the gods, Yamamoto changes his direction to cross, hearing Choujiro's soft exhalation of grudging acknowledgement as the other man turns to follow. The two well-dressed gentlemen make their way purposefully towards Kyouraku's corner, to where the young man stands as he watches Matsuoka-san stumble away, expression both sharply observant and distantly bemused at once.

When Yamamoto stops in front of him a moment later, the youth's eyes slide over both he and Choujiro for just a moment, subtly sizing the older men up with a deceptively easy-going, sideways smile. "Welcome, gentlemen," he greets cordially, once he is finished assessing the situation, "Though forgive me if I'm wrong, but you two don't really strike me as the type of patrons who would choose to frequent our humble little hole in the ground."

Yamamoto simply arches an eyebrow and regards the boy with mild amusement. "You're correct. I came to ask if you need a new job," he says, and holds out his hand in plain offering.

Choujiro's eyebrows jump up in surprise at the blatant gesture.

Kyouraku's don't; he just laughs and gladly reaches out to shake Yamamoto's hand.

Ukitake Jyuushirou is only freshly sixteen when his hair starts to go completely white; it begins right at his temples and spreads rapidly backwards from there, prompting his classmates and neighbors to all wonder what such a nice young man is worrying so intently about that his hair should transform so quickly and totally like that.

There are a quite a lot of things to worry him so intently actually, but that is just the nature of Jyuushirou's very large family.

Jyuushirou is a quiet, thoughtful boy who is often seen peeking out from behind the large and imposing shadows of his six loud older brothers and his seven lively older sisters, all of them the heirs to an ancient and vast yakuza empire. In all the meetings Yamamoto takes with the head of the Ukitake clan, Jyuushirou always seems to be watching from the background, silent, calm, and listening to every word that is uttered. It is because of this contemplative nature that the youngest boy is constantly derided by his incredible mountain of a father—a man who clearly only values sons who can punch their way out of a fight— and while the youngest Ukitake does move with a lightness and grace that belies a certain kind of controlled strength under that white hair and pale skin, his potential is overlooked in his home, under the heavy hand of its patriarch and the overpowering presence of Jyuushirou's heartier siblings. The fact that he is also often pale and drawn, is often perpetually unwell, leads his father to prefer ignoring him over trying to find the true nature of his talents.

Similarly, the head of the Ukitake clan feels the same about Yamamoto's proposals for partnership, and while he doesn't mind entertaining the up-and-coming leader of what Yamamoto is calling the First Division, he often laughs in the face of the other man's plans for the future, citing that an alliance of different families policing a wide area of territory under the central authority of several heads would never work, would never command loyalty or discipline from individual members. In the meantime, Jyuushirou listens intently to Yamamoto's proposals in the background, his nose often buried in a book, his eyes clear and thoughtful.

Yamamoto eventually learns that someone as set in his ways as the head of the Ukitake is means that he is not someone they should seek to bring into the fold in the first place. But he decides that the time spent attempting to woo the Ukitake to their side is not entirely wasted when, upon his and Choujiro's walk back to their car, young Jyuushirou follows them out of the house, breathless and panting slightly as he rushes to catch up, a book tucked against his chest and his cheeks rapidly turning pink from the cold. Yamamoto looks questioningly at the teenager as he stops to catch his breath.

"I just wanted you to know that I see it," Jyuushirou begins after a moment, clutching the book against his chest a little more tightly. "The proposal that you showed my dad, I can see it. He doesn't understand, but the idea of each branch's autonomy under a shared set of ideals, the basic freedom and the security it would provide. The possibilities for growth would be endless and the chances of rival groups being able to break down the, the central autho…"

He trails off into a series of shallow coughs before he can finish his excited speech, too much strain catching up to his otherwise frail body, and sheepish, he looks down at the ground, trying to find his breath again.

When he does, he manages to croak out, weakly, "Please, please don't take my family out of consideration…I'm sure, I'm sure if I can just talk to my father, I can convince him."

He looks up at Yamamoto with big, hopeful eyes then, and that inner strength Yamamoto had seen hints of in the background shines through the boy in that moment, enough that—despite his skepticism about the Ukitake clan changing its mind—Yamamoto finds himself nodding and saying, "See me in three days."

Jyuushirou's entire expression lights up at having gained a hearing with such a powerful man, and he nods once, smiling, before bowing quickly and scurrying out of the way.

After he is gone and they are climbing back into the car, Choujiro calls Yamamoto a softie.

Yamamoto doesn't move to disagree.

Three days later, Jyuushirou shows up at Yamamoto's door as promised, half of his face swollen and bruised, his lip cut and bleeding.

He stumbles in through the door to Yamamoto's office with his head held high, and when the older man looks up from his work it is because he hears Shunsui's sharp intake of breath from where he is standing guard at the door as Jyuushirou suddenly collapses. Shunsui moves on instinct and catches the smaller boy before he hits the ground.

They both seem surprised, blinking at each other as Shunsui cradles Ukitake's thin body in his arms.

Yamamoto is not as surprised. "Your father said no," he states, matter-of-factly.

The two youths remember themselves then, and hastily, Ukitake manages to regain his equilibrium and stand on his own two feet again, though Shunsui hovers closely behind him the entire time, like he expects him to fall at any second now.

"My father said no," Jyuushirou confirms, but sets his jaw. "He also threw me out of the house."

Yamamoto eyes him. "But you still came to see me."

Jyuushirou blinks. "You said to come see you in three days. You didn't say not to if he said no."

Yamamoto snorts. "Well? Now what, boy?"

The white-haired teen has the grace to look slightly sheepish then. "Well, I'm not the Ukitake clan exactly, but I am an Ukitake, and I guess I was wondering if it was okay if you took just me instead."

Yamamoto gives a sharp bark of laughter, before nodding. "Shunsui," he instructs, looking over at his new page with a slight grin, "get Ukitake set up at your place."

Shunsui balks. "What?"

Yamamoto is having none of it. "That apartment of yours has more than enough space for two, you ungrateful idiot," he begins, gruffly. "And you could use a responsible roommate, so that maybe you'll actually go to the school I'm paying so damn much to put you through once in a while."

Jyuushirou holds up his hands in protest. "I wouldn't want to put anyone out," he admits, with an apologetic look at Shunsui. "I can work, and pay my own tuition and rent. You don't have to put me up, Yamamoto-san."

"Shut up," Yamamoto tells him simply, and turns to look at Shunsui expectantly. "Well, scamp?"

Shunsui eyes the newcomer again before sighing in a rather melodramatic, if slightly amused manner. "I suppose it would be inhumane," he declares, "to say no to a face like that."

Inexplicably, Jyuushirou turns pink. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Shunsui grins and claps the other boy on the shoulder. "It means you can help me study calculus." He gives Jyuushirou his most disarming look before offering his hand. "Kyouraku Shunsui."

Relieved, Jyuushirou manages an open, hopeful smile, though the flush on his cheeks remains as he reaches out to clasp Kyouraku's hand in both of his own. "Ukitake Jyuushirou."

They shake firmly then—eyes riveted to one another— and Yamamoto feels like something important in the history of his new family has just happened.

After an initial few days of awkwardness regarding use of the bathroom and whether or not the floor is the appropriate place for dirty clothes, the two new roommates settle into a comfortable coexistence with surprising speed and ease.

The routine comes after that; the apartment isn't luxurious by any means but there are two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a small kitchen that opens to an even smaller living room. It's close to their school at that and lies within a ten minute walk to Yamamoto-san's main offices, though on some days, Sasakibe-san is feeling generous and picks them up for work directly after school.

Ukitake likes to cook as it turns out, and with the promise of a meal that isn't from the convenience store bento, Kyouraku can be bribed to do dishes. When they eat it is always together, across the small table in their living room before it's time for homework or other assignments from Yamamoto-san.

And so their days go something like this:

Ukitake wakes to the sound of his alarm and stumbles into Kyouraku's room to wake him up; chances are the other boy has already shut his alarm off three or four times over the course of the morning. He doesn't like the nagging, bleating tones of his clock but the gentle shaking and bleary murmurs of Ukitake's often plaintive requests for him to rise soon become enough to get him up, often even with a smile, and he gets the honor of first shower while Ukitake starts breakfast. They switch after the food is done; Ukitake cleans up, Kyouraku brews coffee, and more often than not, twenty minutes to seven finds them eating together in comfortable silence, as Ukitake reads the newspapers and Kyouraku laughs along with the gimmicks of the morning talk shows.

At school Kyouraku is popular with the girls; he is charming and easy-going and chivalrous, which makes them blush and all secretly dream he's their boyfriend.

Ukitake is popular with everyone because he is ingenuous and open and has a delicate-seeming sort of nature that makes people instinctively protective of him. The teachers love his work ethic and his sense of responsibility, the boys appreciate his friendly but competitive nature, and the girls admire his refined good looks and his open smile.

But despite the many admirers and friendly acquaintances they make at school, not one of them can say that they're particularly close to Ukitake or Kyouraku; the two boys also have a mysterious air about them that seems to preclude anyone from getting too close to them. Instinctively the other boys don't ask them out to events after school or to join the sports teams while the girls don't ask them out on dates or to karaoke because while the two of them are fun to admire from a distance, it feels like whenever someone tries to get any nearer to them on a personal level, they end up mysteriously pushed farther away somehow.

Before long, the other students at their high school simply assume that the two of them have the kind of close relationship that cannot be penetrated by any outsider.

Ukitake and Kyouraku don't know that this is what the rest of the students think about them of course; they only know that their particular lifestyle under Yamamoto-san precludes any kind of relationship with outsiders that might be a hindrance to what their boss is trying to do (or that might put those unwitting students in great danger simply by association).

(Neither do Ukitake and Shunsui realize that they are ultimately satisfied with having no one else to call a friend so long as they have each other.)

After school has ended for the day and Ukitake has taken care of his duties as class president and Kyouraku has taken care of his duties as eternal loiterer on the school lawn waiting for Ukitake to finish his duties as class president, the two of them hurry to Yamamoto's main headquarters, where all manner of hardship awaits them; often it is kendo and karate, judo, aikido, and archery. Then there are driving lessons, business management lessons, file folders to be read on friends and enemies alike, and on occasion, when Yamamoto-san is feeling confident in them, the rare field trip, either to one of the family's business establishments or to a meeting with allies or potential allies.

Yamamoto-san is a cruel task master in this way, particularly in terms of the martial arts, while Choujiro is just as bad with the administrative arts, and between the two of them, Kyouraku and Ukitake are often exhausted, sore, and headachy at the end of each work day.

In the evenings, or the nights, or whatever hour it happens to be when the day's tasks are over, no matter how late it is, Kyouraku and Ukitake find themselves returning to their apartment, doing their homework for school, and always, always sharing the final meal of the day, even if it's just a warm glass of milk and some cookies.

And with this routine, Kyouraku finds that for the first time in his life, he is comfortable.

Similarly, for the first time in Ukitake's life, he feels valued.

And even though they have no other close friends from school, or when they are bloody and bruised and exhausted from the afternoon's events under Yamamoto's stern eye, the two of them discover that they never regret having to face all of their days like this, so long as it is the two of them together.

University is no different from high school with the exception of the two of them having more free time.

Kyouraku spends a lot of that free time hobnobbing and making a name for himself around town because, as Yamamoto-san has always said, his strength lies in his ability to be at ease with people and to study them and read them and figure them out without their knowing. Kyouraku hones his art, hones his alcohol tolerance, and grows his hair out in those years after high school, flirting with pretty girls, palling around with powerful men, and in general, doing everything that Yamamoto saw the potential in him to do all those years ago on a street corner in Ginza.

Ukitake, prone to sickness and fatigue, prefers to spend his free time staying in, where he is often seen reading, thinking, planning, preparing. That is his strength as well, the ability to look at a problem deeply and thoroughly, to see the game board and the consequences of each move well ahead of the rest of the pack. He is the hardest worker in Yamamoto-san's office despite only being a part-timer in-between his business and economics classes, tirelessly taking stacks and stacks of folders and reports back with him at the end of the night, and more often than not, bringing them back in again the next morning, with whatever task he had needed them for completed and perfected.

Yamamoto-san has always said that Kyouraku and Ukitake are like opposite sides of the same coin; their abilities and preferences keep them balanced. It is why, he surmises, the two have been able to find such harmony with one another. They're too different to truly conflict.

But despite everything, despite the flirting and the hobnobbing and the drunken parties and silk-tongued promises, Kyouraku finds himself—inexplicably—coming home every night, no matter what temptations might keep him otherwise occupied. Sometimes he stumbles through the door, sometimes he is covered in perfume and lipstick or reeks of cigarettes and alcohol, but he always comes home in the end, be it three in the morning or four, and often, Ukitake will still be up in the living room when he arrives, the white-haired young man curled up on the couch with a book, or a crossword, or the family's ledger, and he will smile when Kyouraku arrives, will get up and if need be, help his friend to a chair, or onto the couch, or to his bed. Kyouraku will grin and say, "I'm home," in low tones when he sees Ukitake's pretty, familiar face look up at him, and he will more often than not, forget the name of every bigwig CEO or famously beautiful actress he had spent the evening rubbing elbows with at the sight of him.

Ukitake will smile back and push his glasses up on his nose; he will mark his place in whatever he is reading and answer, "Welcome back," with what is fondness, warm and real. He never says if he stays up that late waiting for Kyouraku specifically, but then again, it is a question that never gets asked.

The men and women who Kyouraku spends time with in the clubs and the bars often whisper and wonder what is wrong when, after hours of getting on famously, Kyouraku always excuses himself from whoever's company he may be in at the end of the night, often paying the tab, saluting gently, and merely saying, "I've got to go."

Similarly, the office ladies at Yamamoto-san's high rise building downtown often wonder why someone as nice and handsome as Ukitake-san chooses to spend his time working so much harder when he, as one of the boss's surrogate sons, should be going to University and making friends, dating girls and having fun.

In theory, both of them understand this as well; Kyouraku understands that a young man of his age and virility should accept that invitation up to that one girl's apartment, or that he is expected to call that pretty waitress up after she slips him her phone number on the napkin of his drink. And Ukitake knows that he doesn't have to fill his days with paperwork, that Yamamoto-san employs professionals to do most of that for him, and that Ukitake is making himself redundant combing over it all over again when he should probably spend more time on campus, or go to that Business Leaders of Tomorrow mixer, or do something about that girl in his econ department who follows him all over campus but never deigns to talk to him.

But truth be told, the both of them would rather just go home.

Kyouraku is not quite thirty before Yamamoto-san's empire has grown into all walks of Tokyo life; upstanding legitimate companies and businesses and underground organizations alike coming together under Yamamoto-san's leadership because they are interested in protecting their interests as well as watching them grow. The Unohana Medical Group comes under their wing, the Kuchiki Zaibatsu, and Urahara Biomed as well, while behind the scenes, strong ties are formed with the Hirako, Shihouin, Muguruma, and Aikawa families, either through financial or familial methods.

What began as a brash, idealistic seed of possibility has blossomed into a monolith, the contender one day and the champion the next. Kyouraku, with a hint of amusement in his voice, realizes that as they grow he is becoming, more and more, a senior officer in this organization, despite the fact that sometimes, he still feels no older than that destitute kid working the door to a seedy club just to keep a roof over his own head.

The jokes about settling down and becoming an adult start en masse the minute he and Ukitake round past twenty-five and head straight towards their third decade; the other men joke that Yamamoto-san's two boys are all grown up now and soon they'll have to settle down with nice, scary oneesans like Retsu-chan and live the high and mighty legitimate Mafioso-heir life.

Kyouraku always laughs at those notions, the idea of a wife—especially one like Retsu-chan— and children seems odd to him sometimes, not in a distant way but in a strangely familiar one, and whenever he jokes to his assistant Lisa about it, about whether or not she'll marry him and make an honest man of him, she simply sighs at him and adjusts her glasses and tells him, "That's sexual harassment," in flat, unimpressed tone. She never takes his entreaties seriously.

"Ah, she doesn't love me," Kyouraku laments, after her icy words cut him to the quick for the umpteenth time.

"It's because she knows you're not serious," Ukitake laughs, in an entirely endearing, gentle sort of way. The two of them are taking lunch at their apartment today—a much larger, much nicer one than that first closet-sized thing Yamamoto-san had put them up in—as Ukitake recovers from the last bout of pneumonia he had managed to catch. Kyouraku is intent on keeping him company this afternoon and having Lisa bring him his work here in their living room, despite her earlier protests.

Kyouraku smiles at Ukitake's gentle reprimand, and supposes that he's right and about not being serious about marrying Lisa at all, even though Lisa-chan is as good a woman as any he's ever met because she's smart, strong, loyal, and beautiful.

Also, she doesn't take any of his bullshit.

He helps Ukitake drink his soup after a moment, while Ukitake looks sheepish and apologetic. Kyouraku tsks at that expression and reaches out to brush his friend's long hair behind his ear, telling Ukitake not to make those sorts of ridiculous faces. "I'm actually glad to not be in the office today," he reassures Ukitake, and while the answering expression he gets from the other man says that Ukitake doesn't buy it entirely, he's grateful for the company and the care anyway.

Hours later, when Kyouraku forces Ukitake back to bed for some additional rest, he tucks his friend in, pets his hair, and sits at his bedside reading to him until he falls asleep. Once Ukitake's breathing has evened out, Kyouraku sneaks back into the living, where Lisa is waiting for him in the doorway to the kitchen with a hot cup of a tea and another stack of files printed out of the laser jet in the home office. She arches an eyebrow at him, which makes him blink back at her questioningly, but all she says out loud is, "That's sexual harassment," before shoving the files into his arms.

He sends her out to refill Ukitake's prescription for him after that and settles down to work within viewing distance of Ukitake's door, which he has left just a crack open, just in case.

He stays home to work the entire week that it takes Ukitake to recover.

Hirako-san insists on setting Kyouraku up for a serious date after Kyouraku's thirty-first birthday, declaring that he'll take it as a personal offense if the other man doesn't take this girl he knows out, because it's just plain weird for a guy as smooth (and old and rich) as Shunsui is to flirt like a schoolgirl but never close the deal at the midnight hour. Kyouraku laughingly wonders who has so much time that they're talking about this in detail to Shinji, but agrees to the date just to get Shinji off his back, because as nice as the man seems, he really is one of the creepiest looking human beings Kyouraku has ever seen, next only to his right hand man, a young and mild-mannered lawyer named Sousuke. Kyouraku makes the promise to take this cousin-or-whatever of Shinji's out next Friday during their morning meeting and thinks nothing of it again until later.

When Kyouraku meets Ukitake in his office for lunch that afternoon is when he suddenly thinks about it again, feeling oddly guilty somehow, like he'd drank all of the milk left in the fridge and put the carton back inside (only worse).

Ukitake asks him, worriedly, if he's feeling okay, and when Kyouraku breaks out into a cold sweat, he thinks that maybe he is coming down with something after all, though he smiles and tells his friend that he's fine, even as Ukitake reaches out and rests his palm lightly against Kyouraku's forehead, in search of a temperature.

He doesn't find one, and slightly mollified, tells Kyouraku to at least put his jacket back on and drink a little warm tea; he might not be sick yet, but he definitely looks like he could be on the verge of coming down with something.

Kyouraku doesn't end up telling Ukitake about the date at all, and thankfully, is given the excuse to cry off from it at the last minute because Jyuushirou asks him if he wants to go see a movie that night and Kyouraku says yes between one breath and the next, without thought or hesitation.

Shinji is pissed, Kyouraku feels something a lot like relief, and that Friday night, he and his best friend spend the evening at the theater together, watching old Kurosawa prints on loan from the national archives.

Well, Ukitake watches the movie; Kyouraku doesn't really pay much attention to what's happening on the screen because he finds that he keeps looking out of the corner of his eye at Ukitake instead.

Kyouraku wonders if maybe this means something is wrong with him when he is giving up dates with (supposedly) cute girls from America to stare at his best friend in a dark room instead.

It's very likely that something is wrong with him, but Kyouraku doesn't let himself think too hard about it; somehow, part of him feels like he isn't ready to know quite yet.

He's sure the time will come eventually, at its own pace. For the time being, he lets himself enjoy the smile on Ukitake's face as the white-haired man eats way too many sweet things and watches a bunch of ill-equipped samurai thwart rice-stealing bandits in black and white on the silver screen.

A week later, when Ukitake tells Kyouraku— in a disbelieving, boggled sort of tone— that he has a date coming up this weekend, he doesn't expect his friend to react by spilling his coffee all over himself and the breakfast table.

"Dammit," Kyouraku mutters, when he gets dark liquid all over his new white shirt. Ukitake quickly grabs a napkin and leans forward to help dab at the stain spreading across Kyouraku's chest.

"Sorry," Ukitake breathes, brow furrowed as he concentrates on soaking up what he can of the stain while combing his mind for any remedies he might have read before, about getting coffee out of fabric. He hears Kyouraku's sharp intake of breath then, very close to his ear, and alarmed, he draws back quickly, afraid that he'd pressed too hard or made it worse somehow. "Shunsui?" he asks, looking at the other man carefully. "You're not injured are you?"

There had been an incident approximately seven years ago, when Kyouraku had returned from an assignment with broken ribs and hadn't told Ukitake about it for fear of worrying him; Ukitake had found out the hard way, when he'd reached out during a conversation to clap Kyouraku on the shoulder and seen all the color suddenly drain out of his friend's face at the pain that jostling his ribs had created.

Ukitake thinks that he will be very mad if they are once again in a situation like that.

Reading his mind, Kyouraku quickly shakes his head. "No, not hurt, I swear," he reassures Ukitake. "Maybe a little burned," he admits, when Ukitake gives him one of his searching looks.

"Damn," Ukitake mutters, and goes to get a wet cloth instead. "Hold on."

"It's fine," Kyouraku tells him, voice a little more composed than it had been just now. "Uh, your date. You were telling me about your date." He gets up to tend to his shirt himself then, leaning over the kitchen sink and leaving Ukitake with a dish towel in one hand and a perplexed look on his face.

"Yes," Ukitake begins, and stares at Kyouraku's back in confusion. "Hirako-san bullied me into it; apparently it's the same girl you cried off on last week."

Kyouraku freezes at the sink. Sighs. "Found out about that, did you?"

Ukitake puts the dish towel back on the hanging rack over the stove, next to the oven mitts with puppies on them that Kyouraku had bought him for no particular reason three years ago. "I did," he answers evenly. "If you had better things to do than watch Seven Samurai with me, you could have just said so, you know," he adds, because he had been meaning to bring it up for days now but hadn't known how.

Kyouraku turns to face him then, a strange smile on his face. "I can promise you that I didn't have anything better to do than spend time with you, Jyuushirou."

Ukitake feels the color rush to his cheeks suddenly, and for a moment it's like they're sixteen all over again and Kyouraku is still saying all manner of stupid, pointless things just because he thinks he's charming. Despite the blush, Ukitake squares his jaw. "I don't want you to avoid dating because you think I'll be lonely here all by myself you know," he manages after a beat, and doesn't entirely not mean it, despite the knowledge that he considers Shunsui and him together as home, despite the fact that he isn't sure if he would be able to deal with anything or anyone new coming into that way of life and disrupting it.

"If you want to go out with someone and I invite you to do something else on the same night, please don't think that I'll be offended if you tell me no," he adds, more gently this time. As far as Ukitake is concerned, the only thing worse than ruining the existence of just-the-two-of-them would be selfishly keeping Kyouraku tied to it even if he wants something else, which is why he is determined to be resolute in this.

Kyouraku seems to consider this very seriously, like he is weighing every single one of the merits of saying no to anything Ukitake asks of him for the sake of a date, or a girl, or the potential to have a future and a life and a family with that girl. Then, after what feels like a very long time, he also seems to come to a decision regarding the matter, which makes Ukitake brace himself in preparation to act relieved when Kyouraku agrees with him.

But Kyouraku just says, "So you said yes to Shinji then?"

Ukitake blinks. That is not the response he had expected at all. In fact, it has absolutely nothing to do with Kyouraku's acknowledgment that from now on, he would date openly and worry about what Ukitake's weekends will be like a lot less. Puzzled, Ukitake manages a slightly surprised response, murmuring, "After Hirako-san's ranting about how poorly you treated this cousin of his, I didn't really have the chance to say no. So I suppose I said yes to this date by omission."

Kyouraku's throat bobs in a strange manner when he hears that, and he takes a step forward, unconsciously maybe, because he stops himself abruptly, puts his arms down methodically at his sides like he has to mentally keep them there for fear of them acting on their own. When he looks at the odd expression on Kyouraku's face, Ukitake's heart suddenly starts beating very fast in his chest and he isn't sure why.

"When is it?" Kyouraku asks.

Ukitake's breathing is a little shaky. "Friday. At seven."

Kyouraku frowns. "Wow. Okay. That's very soon."

Ukitake is noticeably puzzled by all of this very erratic behavior, especially since Kyouraku is infamous for being so even-keeled about everything. "What's wrong with you, Shunsui?" he asks, when he doesn't think he can take it anymore.

Kyouraku lets out a short bark of laughter at that, but not a particularly joyful one. It is more self-effacing than anything. "I think I'm just starting to figure that out, actually," he admits after a moment, and looks Ukitake over like he's seeing him for the first time again.

Ukitake feels the flush on his cheeks from earlier make its way down to his neck under the power of that look, and he abruptly turns his face away in embarrassment. "Well, feel free to share with the class," he says, eyes trained on the floor. "Because I have no idea what's going on with you right now."

Kyouraku smiles; Ukitake can't see it but he knows it's there instinctively, and then Kyouraku is suddenly walking forward again, reaching out to put a hand on Ukitake's head. The mussing of his hair by Kyouraku is a familiar thing between them by now, but somehow, Kyouraku feels closer than usual as he's doing it this time. It sets Ukitake on edge, but not in an entirely unpleasant way. "I'm going to ask you something," Kyouraku murmurs then, voice low. "And depending on how you answer, this could be a very big deal."

Ukitake doesn't dare to look up when he takes a deep breath and says, "All right."

Kyouraku takes an answering deep breath and Ukitake can feel the other man's fingers curl into the strands of his hair, gently but firmly. "This Friday," Kyouraku begins, voice very slightly hoarse, "would you maybe like to come and see a movie with me? I don't know what movie it will be, but I know it will be here at home, and it will start promptly at seven."

It is a ridiculous request, maybe even a selfish one, but Ukitake finds himself blurting, "Yes," before he can even think about it, and then Kyouraku is suddenly laughing, deep and rich, as he leans forward to rest his forehead against Ukitake's.

"Okay," Kyouraku murmurs, sounding suspiciously relieved as his free arm comes up to cup the side of Ukitake's face. "Okay, I can work with that."

Ukitake sighs and closes his eyes, feeling oddly content and jittery all at the same time as he finally gets it, this thing that is wrong with Kyouraku that is apparently wrong with him as well. "Hirako-san is going to kill us," is all he says.

He can feel Kyouraku's answering laughter rumbling against his chest.

They kiss for the first time more than sixteen years after they first met, slow and easy and right in the middle of the kitchen as breakfast gets cold behind them and spilled coffee drips all over their floor.

Ukitake never does end up getting the stains out of Kyouraku's shirt.

Yamamoto-san is what one would consider ancient now, which means that Kyouraku and Ukitake are just plain old. The single entity Yamamoto-san and Sasakibe-san had founded all those years ago has since grown into to be called the Gotei-13 and is considered the most stable, influential entity in the entire country. Kyouraku is in charge of the eighth branch now, officially, and Ukitake of the thirteenth, and even if they are formally considered to be part of different families under the umbrella of the Gotei-13, the members of the eighth and thirteenth divisions still feel like they are part of a single entity somehow, working under separate leaders who are really just part of the same whole, who are opposite sides of the same coin.

As such, they follow many of the same rules.

"Ukitake-san! I need to speak to Ukitake-san!" a man declares at 7:02pm on a wintery Friday night in December. "It's an emergency!"

Ukitake's chief adjutant, Shiba Kaien, looks up dispassionately from his desk, towards the closed door behind him. He examines his watch. "Ouch," he murmurs, when he sees the time. "Looks like you're too late, man," he tells the visitor with a tsk. "Ukitake-san is long gone."

The man is boggled. "But he can't have already…"

Kaien shrugs noncommittally. "Date night with the ball-and-chain. He's gone. Whatcha gonna do, am I right?"

Wide-eyes stare back at him. "I was under the impression that Ukitake-san was unmarried."

Kaien looks horribly amused when he hears that. "Man, you definitely heard wrong."

The man is subsequently turned away from the office by security.

At about the same time, in the eighth division headquarters, a new assistant that Kyouraku calls Nanao-chan works diligently at her own desk, ears deaf to the plight of the person on the phone who apparently has a very important emergency down at the club that Kyouraku-san has to deal with right now. "He's out for the night," she explains again, in the same droll tones as she had the other fifteen times she had told this man that very fact. "He won't be in again until Monday."

"But you don't understand!" the man cries.

"No you understand," Nanao-chan counters, coolly. "It is date night."

"What does that even mean?" the man demands, just as Nanao hangs up on him with a decisive click.

Everyone in the eighth and thirteenth divisions knows what date night is. Everyone who deals with the eighth and thirteenth divisions knows what date night is. Which means that anyone who doesn't know just isn't worth worrying over.

Which leaves Kyouraku and Ukitake together to enjoy Thai delivery on their living room couch for the evening, the two of them watching Late Spring as they take the time to remind themselves of all the reasons why they have never needed anyone but each other.

And later, once the movie is done, they will go to bed and remind one another of why they have always, always, always wanted to spend the night at home.

END